Lazy journalists may have given the impression that Chris Moyles (left) is not thinner than he used to be. Photograph: Beretta/Sims / Rex Features

Discounting photographers and security guards, there were seven people waiting outside BBC Radio 1 HQ on Friday morning, as the juggernaut of Chris Moyles's personality ground to a mutually agreed halt. Three of them were dyed-in-the-wool Chris fans; one declined to comment; three of them were autograph hunters, who hated Chris Moyles.

"Can't stand the bloke," a man in his 40s elaborated. "It's the worst show ever. It'll be brilliant when Nick Grimshaw takes over."

He came to get autographs from guests, and was disappointed that there weren't any, apart from Richard Curtis. Autograph hunters, I have noticed over time, will never tell you their name. I can see that it gets a bad rap, as a hobby, but if they're that embarrassed about it, they could just stop doing it.

A young pair, Adam Philpot, 21, and his nameless companion, also just came to see famous guests who never materialised. "But that's not all we're doing," Adam said, with a nil desperandum smile. "We'll go to Westfield after this." They arrived at 6am.

Inside the building, the swansong show was devoted to the team's achievements over the past eight years, eight months and nine days, and the high regard in which they are held. "Ed Sheeran has sent me a message, saying 'good luck mate, have a good one', which is very sweet." "Scott Mills has sent me some flowers." "We've had 90,000 texts. That's Wembley Stadium, at full capacity. It's amazing, isn't it? When you visualise it like that."

One of the team, Dom, chipped in near the end: "I'm proud of what we've done because I don't think anybody will repeat what we've done." Later on, from Moyles, pensively, almost audibly shaking his head: "It's a hard act to follow." I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law, because I'm not a regular listener; but I think he was talking about himself.

It hasn't been without its trials. "All the flak that we've taken, I'm not talking about criticism or bad reviews, I'm talking about people writing stuff about the show when they don't listen to the show, we just got through all of it." Hang on, there's more … "I do think a lot of the reputation that I have and the show has comes from lazy journalists just rehashing old material. Yesterday, there was a really nice piece in the Guardian about me, and they used a picture from 2003. It's little things like that." Little things like what, you might be wondering? He used to be 18 stone, and now he weighs less than that. We printed a portrait from the fat years, running the risk that people won't realise how thin he really is.

"I'm the only radio host to finish in better shape than when I started," he underlines. "You certainly don't look like a morning show guy," concurred one of guests, dragooned onto the phone to tell him how great he was, from every angle.

I don't wish to cause undue distress to his bereft fans, but this was the most mawkish, self-congratulatory, portentous broadcast I've ever heard emit from the BBC. It was carefully humourless, to maintain its respectful tone. Everything someone might say about a breakfast show at an awards ceremony, while the DJs shuffled on the spot and looked at their feet, they said about themselves. For three and a half hours.

Paul Swinton, 30, leapt to his defence: "Would you not brag about it, if people were calling you a fat git for years?" He started listening when the show first started, but became an ardent fan after an interview with Noel Gallagher during Euro 2004. "You hear the origins of in-jokes and that makes them funnier. If you listen consistently, you find it's like being in a group of mates." I asked him if he was sorry to see the end of this era: "To be honest, it gives me a bit more freedom to listen to what I want in the car in the morning." That's commitment, when you're too loyal even to station surf. Zosia Morris, 23, and Amy Roberts, 24, started listening to Moyles when they were at school. "We thought we'd come down to show our respects," said Zosia. "It's the end of our youth," Amy added, "We're going to have to switch to Radio 2." "Through school, through uni, through trying to get our first job … it's like a group of friends talking that you're also part of."

It's a feat, certainly, making 6.4 million (at the programme's height in 2010, 11.8 million) people feel as though they're in your gang. Part of the appeal of Moyles and his associates was an aura of honesty: sometimes tacit, sometimes open, there was always an undertaking to say exactly what they thought. When what they're thinking is how tearjerkingly proud they are of everything they've done, it grates on the outsider. To the insider, it's part of the charm.